Tom’s daily trip to work turned into a 51-week-fight for his rights after hitting a pothole which had been known about for two years but ignored by the local council.
The South Wales leisure business manager reached an out of court settlement with Stoke on Trent Council for damage caused to his car by a 70mm deep pothole which had not been repaired for over two years but was mentioned in regular surveys of the road in that time.
The driver, who did not want to be named, said, “The road was in a terrible state and the pothole could not be avoided but it took nearly a year of complaining and just days before a Civil Court hearing the council’s insurers agreed to pay up.”
He added, “We used the council’s own repair data to show how they had neglected the road and took out a claim under the Highways (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1961. I would urge any driver to do the same but expect a long fight.”
Tom was fortunate not to suffer personal injury but determined to get compensation for his punctured tyre. His Civil Court Claim included the cost of the tyre replacement and statutory fees to lodge the action and was in excess of £240.
Tom’s experience will be familiar to anyone who has been in a similar situation and is likely to be repeated every few minutes of a day by some unlucky motorists.
His scenario is also typical. After the incident he kept receipts for the replacement tyre and fitting and claimed compensation from the local highway authority – you can find out on-line who is responsible for a particular road, although it’s most likely the local council.
The council passed the claim to a firm of solicitors who denied it was their client’s fault and alleged Tom could have avoided the pothole, was driving too fast or not paying attention. It’s a standard rebuttal designed to deter any further action.
Most claimants walk away at this point, but Tom pressed on, looked up case law and found the very useful Highways (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1961 had been tested and found wanting in a case heard before the legendary Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls, who found in the claimant’s favour. This also involved a long neglected pothole, just as in Tom’s case, and the precedent was set.
Ironically, when rejecting Tom’s claim a second time, the council’s solicitors chose to quote the same case but were selective in what they used to turn down his claim, but he continued and highlighted the full decision of Lord Denning, not just the sections the Council’s legal team had selectively chosen to pick out.
This dragged on for over eleven months and with the hearing listed just days away the council’s representatives saw they did not have a hope of overturning Lord Denning’s conclusions and settled before the local authority faced even higher costs.
So, what can we learn from this long drawn out claim for just a couple of hundred pounds?
Well it’s simple, councils are strapped for cash to do satisfactory managed road repairs and instead resort to patchwork filling and rolling at a time when they have the funds to pay insurance companies to retain and instruct solicitors who will attempt to bluff and bully motorists into not proceeding with a claim for pothole damage.
The highway authority must monitor its roads, compile action or maintenance plans and produce them if asked, as in Tom’s case, as well as keep the carriageway safe for traffic and pedestrians to use without endangering themselves or their vehicles.
In Tom’s case, the very lengthy maintenance report not only highlighted the pothole which was subject to his claim had been noted two years earlier without remedy but further reading showed many more sections existed which could have caused damage.
Furthermore, underlying them were notes by an highways engineer for the authority that the carriageway’s drainage was faulty and water was building up which leads to tarmac lifting over winter frost and ice, so exaggerating the damage still more. It all amounted to a very cursory carriageway surface dressing which would not last more than a few weeks or months depending on traffic flow.
In fact, Tom took a series of original photographs – thank heavens for modern camera phones – showing the pothole which caused his damage and a few months later the repaired potholes in the road and which were now appearing again.
So, what’s to be done? Well, we have had the insurance mis-selling scandal of the early 21st century and are currently going through multi-million pound claims for car finance interest rate rigging, so perhaps the next class action claims will be from motorists who band together to take on councils and their insurers for pothole damage on particularly inadequately maintained roads.
Tom’s case is not unique in the city where it happened and the authority is among the slowest settling claims, but such success is rarer in every town and city across the land, but perhaps not for much longer.
Latest statistics suggest over 13 million drivers have hit potholes in the last two years and garage data studied by the RAC shows drivers on average pay out £460 for repairs after hitting a pothole for anything more serious than a puncture.
That’s some 43% above the typical £260 per claim repaid by UK councils for incidents in 2023. Claims rose 62% in two years and after a very wet 2024 that number is expected to further rise.
Derbyshire had the most potholes per region, with 90,596 – followed by Lancashire (67,439) and Northumberland (51,703).
The area with the longest average time to fix individual holes was Stoke-on-Trent, with a massive 657 days. This was followed by Westminster (556 days) and Norfolk (482 days).
Statistics show January to March is the most expensive quarter for drivers and March is worst with one-in-eight claims lodged then.
Wales is crumbling under a near £1 Billion bill to fix potholed roads and has just allocated £25 M to begin repairs, but road industry bodies say it will need a awful lot more money to do proper repairs.
A pothole has been filled once every six minutes, every day, for 10 years in Wales, but still the backlog of carriageway repairs has reached new heights and is now approaching £1 billion. Wales has 22 local authorities responsible for over 20,000 miles of roads.
The figures, from this year’s Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey report, spelled more misery for road users, with one in every six miles of the local road network – equivalent to 3,200 miles – reported to have less than five years’ structural life remaining. Around 46% of Welsh roads have less than 15 years life left, that’s 9,200 miles crumbling under wheels.
Nationally, 34,600 miles have just five years left in them before needing major repairs. Meanwhile, roads are only resurfaced, on average, once every 93 years across the UK, less frequently in some parts than others and it’s just once in 108 years throughout Wales.
This spring, a UK Parliamentary Committee was told an estimated that 17% of the local road network in England and Wales was in poor condition. It predicted that the one-time catch-up cost to clear the backlog of maintenance issues would cost £16.81 billion and take 12 years to complete.
In October 2023 following cancellation of later phases of the HS2 rail plan, Network North was allocated £8.3 Billion for highways maintenance until the end of 2024 financial year.
HOW TO CLAIM
1 Collect evidence of damage to vehicle, photograph the pothole and note date and time, get written mechanical report and receipt if you have to immediately pay. A witness statement is always helpful.
2 Check who is responsible for a road, usually a local council and search the internet for address to report the incident and make a formal claim including copies of your receipts and professional’s report. State you’re claiming compensation under Highways (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1961.
3 If the authority reject your claim or make a lower offer, consider appealing again or lodge a civil claim yourself or through a solicitor, noting all costs as the bill will mount up but you’re entitled to claim interest from the date of your original claim until settlement. There are useful guidelines here.
4 Be prepared with all your paperwork and photographic evidence if you have to go to court, request the Highway Authority provide disclosure of any evidence they will be relying upon to counter your claim. If they do not produce this in advance they may not be allowed to enter it in defence depending on the Judge’s ruling. You can put your case in person or through a friend or solicitor.
5 Be patient as claiming and contesting offers as well as a formal hearing of usually just a few hours can take a very long time to resolve.
